发展功能农业解决“隐性饥饿”

 据估算,全世界有20亿人口由于微量营养素缺乏处于"隐性饥饿"状态,"隐性饥饿"正成为胁迫人体健康的重大隐患,在发展中国家表现尤为明显。欧美国家建议通过生产功能食品解决这一世界难题。研究表明,众多国家和国际组织很早就通过食品强化、工业强化、膳食多元化和食品增补等措施尝试消除"隐性饥饿",但因为经济、管理、基础设施等多种原因,迄今无法从根本上解决全球尤其是发展中国家面临的"隐性饥饿"问题。随着科学技术的发展,通过作物育种、农艺等生物强化技术生产功能农产品已成为新的热点,与传统技术手段相比经济可行、技术可靠、公众接受度高,已经取得初步成果,具有较好发展前景。为此,中国有关专家提出发展功能农业的战略,得到国家相关部门重视,开展了功能农业关键技术的研发和示范,一些技术取得重要突破。综合国内外经验和研究成果,要从根本上解决"隐性饥饿"问题,需要以全产业链方式发展功能农业产业,技术研究和制度建设同步进行,前者包括育种、农艺、微生物强化等6大技术体系的研发,后者重点是建立多主体、多部门联合实施机制。可以预见,功能农业有望在未来解决国内外"隐性饥饿"过程中发挥重要作用,借助"一带一路"的战略机遇,还可为中国农业供给侧结构性改革和国际化发展战略提供新思路和新策略。

Developing functional agriculture to solve “Hidden Hunger” problem

There are an estimated 2 billion people suffered from the hidden hunger (HH) with a diet lacking adequate intake of vitamins, minerals and other micronutrients. Improving the nutritional quality of food produced and consumed is therefore an important global priority to improve human health and wellbeing, especially for children, women and families in low-income countries where the HH is prevalent. In China, around 300 million people suffer from the HH, and in this paper, the concept of functional foods is proposed and a new strategy, known as the functional agriculture (FA) is developed to combat the HH. This new approach is now officially accepted by the Chinese government with the emergence of a FA industry. Traditional approaches to combat the HH include the food supplementation, the industrial fortification during the food processing, and the promotion of the dietary diversification. The FA, on the other hand, involves the enhancement of the food nutritional quality through improved agronomic practices, plant breeding, biotechnology and other forms of biofortification in the food system. Already there is evidence that the biofortification of crops can be effective in reducing the HH. Ongoing technology development and institutional improvement are seen as the key actions needed to realize the full potential of the FA. The former includes the developments in genetic engineering, agricultural microbiology, biofortification of feeding for livestock, new processing technology, as well as monitoring and evaluation technology. The latter includes the logistics management as well as the new developments in financing, enterprise development and strengthening of research institutions. The FA is expected to play an important role in combating the HH in China and through the "One Belt One Road" initiative to have a wider impact throughout the world.